Readers comment on separating boys and girls in school

Separating boys and girls in schools is increasingly popular and controversial.

Charter schools designed to improve performance of Jacksonville’s young black males and females are being developed along those lines.

Now Duval Superintendent Nikolai Vitti is proposing that Eugene Butler Middle School be revived.

For most classes, boys will learn on separate floors from girls, Denise Amos reported in the Times-Union.

Boys and girls will have their own principals, guidance counselors and deans.

In addition, perhaps more of the neighborhood students will stay home rather than choose to leave for magnets, charters or private schools.

So we asked members of our Email Interactive Group for their comments. Many of those we asked have extensive experience in the educational field.

POSITIVE EXPERIENCE

I have experienced single gender classes as a student in high school and I found it worked for me.

As a high school teacher I would prefer boys separated from girls. From middle school on, the distractions of the opposite sex too often are detrimental to the learning process. It would be nice if there were dedicated magnets with most classes separated by sex! We need to do something to improve the classroom experience. This is just one of our options.

Cyndy Roberts, Jacksonville

THE RIGHT AGE

Middle school is the perfect time to separate the genders. Combining them in resource classes makes sense financially.

Mavis Greene, Orange Park

WORKED FOR THIS FAMILY

As the American consul in out-of-the- way places during the 1950s and 1960s we were forced to put our three preteen and teenage sons in many ad hoc, amateur “American” schools that lacked adequate substance, content, administration and personal training.

We finally put all three boys into all- male English public boarding schools. They thrived. We credit the boarding school educations with whatever success they have achieved in life.

John D. Tinny, Ponte Vedra Beach

STEREOTYPE FACTOR

While single-sex education offers the promise of freeing middle-schoolers from the distractions of their hormonal development, it carries the danger of reinforcing gender stereotypes. This is why the ACLU is suing.

There’s been a lot of attention to widening girls’ interests into traditionally male-dominated fields and activities, but boys, too, can be hurt by school-sanctioned conformity. A quiet, studious or artistic boy can be discouraged from his natural bent or scarred for life.

Can the schools have transparently equal education for separated genders, and can they refrain from strait-jacketing nonconforming kids? Is freedom from distraction worth the risk?

Patricia DeWitt, Jacksonville

LET NEIGHBORHOOD DECIDE

Both sides of the single-gender classroom debate have good points. On one hand, an American University study points out that co-ed classrooms tend to favor male participation over females.

Critics would say that single-gender classrooms do not prepare boys or girls for mixed company in college or the workplace. Is public school intended to socialize our children?

This is where it is useful to have more community control with schools. We have many ideas in our district. And if such methods prove successful, they could inspire others through best practices.

John Louis Meeks Jr., Jacksonville

GIVE IT A CHANCE

As an educator for 37 years, I believe this idea is the right one for this particular scenario.

You have a school that has been performing abysmally for far too long. Other changes obviously have not worked. Educators know in many instances around the country these single-gender classrooms have worked.

I told my students was that I was there to teach and they were there to learn.

If Butler educators can change the dynamics so that real learning is taking place in a better school atmosphere, then it’s not back to another form of “separate but equal.”

If the sexes are separated and students wear uniforms but the prevailing culture changes to teachers being able to teach and students showing measured learning, then this would be worth it.

Dave Neal, Fleming Island

TEST IT AS AN EXPERIMENT

Single-sex schools will be no panacea for youngsters handicapped by poverty, health issues, lack of books to read at home and possibly handicapped by parental dysfunctions.

Yet having taught at an all-woman’s college and attended an all-male university, I remember students working with fewer distractions during the week to achieve their educational goals.

So as an experiment, I say why not try it and see what happens?

It may even help.

Jim Crooks, Jacksonville

TONING DOWN DISTRACTIONS

I had an experience with a class of just boys during summer school that only lasted for a couple of days.

The class was well behaved and on task until the office sent a few girls into my class to balance the numbers.

Suddenly these well-behaved boys became class clowns just to impress the girls.

It was amazing, the entire personality of the class changed.

They did settle down, but it remained an unwanted element.

Another effect of placing boys and girls of this age group in the same class is the fact that boys are more aggressive and so the girls take a back seat in leadership roles and when answering questions.

Girls are not held back when it is a class of just girls. I often thought about the progress that these students would make if it weren’t for this unnecessary distraction.